Roaring about life since 2009

Check out this neat little study from the Pew Research Center regarding Republican voter knowledge of issues:

Republicans, on average, answered one more question correctly than Democrats (5.9 vs. 4.9 correct). These differences are partly a reflection of the demographics of the two groups; Republicans tend to be older, well educated and male, which are characteristics associated with political and economic knowledge. Still, even when these factors are held constant, Republicans do somewhat better than Democrats on the knowledge quiz.

Today ND State Senator Tracy Potter (D) entered the race for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by the retiring Sen. Byron Dorgan. Running against the popular Republican Governor John Hoeven will be interesting even if no other candidates for the Democrats decide to enter the race.

I’ve always thought North Dakota is a peculiar state for a while now because of the ND State Legislature’s conservative leanings compared to the solidly Democratic delegation they’re sent to Congress for the last decade or two. Which makes it that much more fun to speculate on who North Dakotans will eventually send to the Senate. But I don’t think the guy they send to the Senate should be running just for the hell of it, which is the impression I get from this article.

“The opportunity to run for the U.S. Senate, for an open seat, just doesn’t come along that often,” Potter said. “I looked at the landscape, know a lot of people that were talked about and considered it, but no one was stepping forward.”

Here’s a few good stories in the news today, and several relate to the new Minnesota legislative session that began this week.

Local/Minnesota Politics:

Both of my State Legislators are in the news today, check it out:

Lanning under pressure in bonding bill debate – State Representative Morrie Lanning (R-9A) is apparently being courted by the DFL as potential vote to support the massive bonding bill introduced at the beginning of this legislative session.

Beings that I have been a student for such a large period of my life, education reform has slowly elbowed through the other important issues that I try to keep up to speed on regularly. As a soon-to-be college graduate entering a recession-sickened job market with a heavy debtload, I’m more than a bit irritated at the current workings of the “education-industrial complex.”

It’s these concerns that have led me to bone up on and devote a number of posts on a regular basis to K-12, undergraduate and graduate school issues. Here’s the first few links:

Since I took the day off after class to go see “Where the Wild Things Are” with Kayla and her daughter, I don’t have a brilliant and insightful response to President Obama yet, but imma cookin’ somethin’ up. Until then, here’s a concise and amusing response from Jim Geraghty.

But probably my favorite part was Justice Samuel Alito mouthing “that’s not true” in regards to Obama’s criticism of Citizens United v. FEC. According to a pundit on Fox News, Justice Alito is this year’s winner of the “Joe Wilson Award.” Well good for him!

A good, swift kick in the balls every so often lets you remember how much getting kicked in the balls really hurts.

Well it’s been roughly a day since Scott Brown’s amazing upset in Massachusetts, so how are North Dakota’s national representatives and senators taking the news? Discounting the retiring Senator Byron Dorgan of course.

Let’s take a look at the scorecard so far, starting with Representative Earl Pomeroy! According to this story compiled by HotAir, Rep. Pomeroy is believed to be in the running for CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers.

“Several high-profile Democrats, including North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy and former Sen. Bob Kerrey (Neb.), are said to be in the running to fill former Oklahoma Republican Gov. Frank Keating’s post as CEO and president of the American Council of Life Insurers,” Roll Call (subscription) reports.

Ready to abandon ship for the private sector, are we? Isn’t that just sweet? So we have Dorgan leaving, and with all talk about retiring, maybe Pomeroy will look to his colleague’s wife’s organization and wonder…what if?

So who does that leave, Senator Kent Conrad? Maybe it’s time for this bastion of public integrity to catch retirement fever as well, given this outrageous bit of conniving to push Obamacare through:

The Senate Budget Committee Chairman said Wednesday he’s willing to use special rules to force changes to the healthcare legislation through the Senate with a simple majority vote.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) made clear his openness to applying budget reconciliation to healthcare, a position he opposed prior to this week’s special election in Massachusetts, is contingent on the content of the bill.

Yeah, cute title, but it has nothing to do with what the average person would consider “reconciliation” and absolutely everything to do with strong-arm tactics of utter desperation. My god, MASSACHUSETTS of all places just sent a REPUBLICAN to the Senate who RAN A CAMPAIGN ON OPPOSING OBAMACARE! Sorry about the yelling, but maybe this isn’t quite clear to the Democrats who still think passing this monstrosity is a good idea. Massachusetts. The left-wing bastion of Ted “make it all free” Kennedy. Seriously. No one wants this bill to pass, and by no one I mean roughly 38% of Americans.

With any luck, 2/3 of North Dakota will be red by the end of this year and I’m sure we’ll clean up the remaining third by 2012.

So after weeks of shutting the Republicans out, negotiating in closed sessions to hammer out a disaster of a healthcare bill, lying about transparency and giving the cold shoulder to anyone disagreeing with the heavy-handed steamroller that is the Democratic party, this is what we get?

It took a whole study to figure this out? Good gods, everyone knows that famous quote which has been beaten to death regarding politics – “Power corrupts.” The problem with Democrats is that their ideology makes it so much easier to become powerful by believing that the government has the power to fix and legislate every little problem and facet of American life. If, on the other hand, you believe in a limited sphere of government intervention and action, restraint is the word of the day. You have less ability to make these deals because you have less power, and if you want to get elected again, you have to prove you talk the talk and walk the limited government walk. Here’s the article from CATO:

There is a new study from a couple of academics at the University of Michigan, who found significant relationships between lobbying and bailout money, as well as a greater chance of getting bailouts depending on a bank’s ties with either the Federal Reserve or key members of Congress. Hopefully, people across America will draw the obvious conclusion and realize that big government is inherently corrupting[.]

Like I said before in a previous post, Obama is a classic product of the corrupt Chicago Democratic Machine. Bribes, kickbacks, coercison and spin is the name of the game. Don’t believe me? For another fun one about the Healthcare fiasco, look at what the Dems had to do to drum up (bribe?) enough support in Nebraska!

Nelson also won several other concessions, most notably a commitment from the federal government to fully fund his state’s expanded Medicaid population. All states get full federal assistance for the first three years of the bill — but Nebraska would be the only state getting full assistance afterward. One Democratic official put the cost to the federal government at $45 million over a decade.

Come on guys, this isn’t compromise and debate, this is railroading a gigantic and detrimental piece of legislation through before anyone has any idea what the hell it is and who will really benefit. Voting under the cover of darkness is hardly the sunshine Obama promised on the campaign trail. But to be fair, he also said we would immediately withdraw from Afghanistan.

About Me

Hey everybody my name is Mike Magnusson, also known as the Minnesota Grizzly Bear and I’ve been adding a healthy *roar* to conservative commentary since 2009.

I’m a registered Republican, liberty-lover , free market advocate, NRA member and a proud follower of Asatru (what we believe in a nutshell: Gods, Family, Responsibility). I’m an undergraduate student ready to graduate in 2010, and my interests are